1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for distributed image processing and storage.
2. Description of Related Art
With the advent of digital images, several prior art systems for image processing and storage have burgeoned. The prior art image processing and storage systems have become very popular because they allow photographers to make their images available for viewing to a large number of potential customers that may be located in random locations around the globe. The prior art systems include host sites that offer digital images for viewing by potential customers who may wish to purchase the digital images.
Hundreds of digital images are typically captured at events, such as weddings, by photographers, and the potential customers may have attended the event. The host sites are in communication with image laboratories and customer computers via a communication system, such as the Internet; and, photographer computers are in communication with the image laboratories. In this manner, photographers may send film, if the images were captured on traditional film, or a CD, which includes the digital images, to the image laboratory. If the photographer sent film to the image laboratory, the laboratory would convert the pictures taken on film to digital images. The image laboratory then sends the images to the host site for uploading. In other prior art systems, the photographer computers are in communication with the host site, and the photographers send the digital images to the host site by using the File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The photographers must manually send digital images to the host site, which is a lengthy and cumbersome process that can take as much as thirty hours to complete. The prior art systems impose an undue burden on photographers to upload images because the prior art systems either require photographers to physically ship the captured images to a laboratory for uploading or require photographers to spend a great deal of time to manually FTP digital images to the host site.
After the photographer ships the hundreds of images to the image laboratory, the image laboratory stores the hundreds of digital images, in high resolution format, and uploads the hundreds of digital images, in high resolution format, to the host site. The photographer may then access the host site and select a small subset of the uploaded images that the photographer believes potential customers may select for purchasing. At the host site, the selected images are converted from a high resolution format to a low resolution and/or a thumbnail format and are converted into a JPEG format. The photographer may also crop or rotate the selected images as desired. The small subset of selected and converted images are then made available to customers for viewing. Of the small subset of images, customers choose an even smaller subset for purchasing. The chosen smaller subset of images are then retransmitted, in high resolution format, from the host site back to the image laboratory for printing.
By requiring the image laboratory to store the hundreds of images in a high resolution format, the image laboratory is required to have large storage resources; and, by requiring the image laboratory to send the hundreds of images to the host site, the image laboratory is required to have large bandwidth resources. Further, the host site must also have large storage and bandwidth resources to receive and store the hundreds of high resolution images that are transmitted to the host site from the image laboratory. Moreover, by requiring the images to be converted into low resolution and/or thumbnail formats and into JPEG format at the host site, the host site must have tremendous processing resources to accommodate the conversion of thousands of images that are being transmitted to the host site from several image laboratories. While the image laboratory and the host site must invest in a large amount of storage, bandwidth and processing resources to accommodate uploading and processing of the hundreds of high resolution images, the storage, bandwidth and processing resources of the user computer are being unutilized.
When the processed images are stored at the host site, the images are stored at a remote image file and image related data that describe the images are stored at a host database. Pointers, which indicate where the images are stored, must also be stored at the host database. When a customer wishes to view an image, it sends an image request to the host site. The host site retrieves image related data, which pertains to the requested images, from the host database; and, in a second step, retrieves the requested images from the remote image file. The host site uses the pointers stored in the host database to determine the location of the requested images in the remote image file. To ensure that the pointers indicate the location of the correct image, the integrity of the pointers must constantly be maintained by the host site.
The steps of retrieving pointers from the host database and of retrieving the images from the remote file location are burdensome and, oftentimes, result in incorrect pointers—preventing a database user from viewing the image. Because the prior art systems require such steps, processing power of the host site is wasted and the period of time required for viewers, such as customers and users, to view the images is prolonged.
In sum, although the prior art image processing and storage systems facilitate image viewing, the prior art image processing and storage systems have several inefficiencies. The inefficiencies of prior art systems result in an extra burden for photographers while uploading or sending their images to the host site, a wastage of storage resources at both the image laboratory and the host site, a wastage of processing resources at the host site, an extended delay in the time that images are uploaded onto the host site, and an extended delay in the amount of time it takes viewers to view the images.
As a result, a need remains for an image processing and storage method and system that does not create an extra burden for photographers, a wastage of storage resources, a wastage of processing resources, an extended delay for image uploading, and an extended delay in the amount of time it takes viewers to view images.